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Music of Japan

The music of Japan includes a wide array of performers in distinct styles, both traditional and modern. The word for "music" in Japanese is (ongaku), combining the kanji ? on (sound) with the kanji ? gaku (enjoy).[1]Japan is the largest physical music market in the world, worth US$2 billion in sales in physical formats in 2014, and the second-largest overall music market, worth a total retail value of 2.6 billion dollars in 2014[2] – dominated by Japanese artists, with 37 of the top 50 best-selling albums[3] and 49 of the top 50 best-selling singles in 2014.[4]

Traditional and folk music

There are two forms of music recognized to be the oldest forms of traditional Japanese music. They are sh?my? ( or ) or Buddhist chanting and gagaku () or orchestral court music, both of which date to the Nara and Heian periods.[6]Gagaku is a type of classical music that has been performed at the Imperial court since the Heian period.[] Kagura-uta (), Azuma-asobi () and Yamato-uta () are indigenous repertories. T?gaku () and komagaku originated from the Chinese Tang dynasty via the Korean Peninsula.[] In addition, gagaku is divided into kangen () (instrumental music) and bugaku () (dance accompanied by gagaku).

Originating as early as the 13th century are honkyoku ( "original pieces"). These are single (solo) shakuhachi () pieces played by mendicantFuke sectpriests of Zen buddhism[]. These priests, called komus? ("emptiness monk"), played honkyoku for alms and enlightenment. The Fuke sect ceased to exist in the 19th century, but a verbal and written lineage of many honkyoku continues today, though this music is now often practiced in a concert or performance setting.[] The samurai often listened to and performed in these music activities, in their practices of enriching their lives and understanding.[]

Biwa h?shi, Heike biwa, m?s? and goze

Biwa.

The biwa ( - Chinese: pipa), a form of short-necked lute, was played by a group of itinerant performers (biwa h?shi) (?) who used it to accompany stories.[] The most famous of these stories is The Tale of the Heike, a 12th-century history of the triumph of the Minamoto clan over the Taira[]. Biwa h?shi began organizing themselves into a guild-like association (t?d?) for visually impaired men as early as the thirteenth century. This guild eventually controlled a large portion of the musical culture of Japan.[] biwa is Japan's traditional instrument.

In addition, numerous smaller groups of itinerant blind musicians were formed especially in the Kyushu area[]. These musicians, known as m?s? ( blind monk) toured their local areas and performed a variety of religious and semi-religious texts to purify households and bring about good health and good luck. They also maintained a repertory of secular genres. The biwa that they played was considerably smaller than the Heike biwa (?) played by the biwa h?shi.[]

Blind women, known as goze (), also toured the land since the medieval era, singing songs and playing accompanying music on a lap drum.[] From the seventeenth century they often played the koto or the shamisen. Goze organizations sprung up throughout the land, and existed until recently in what is today Niigata prefecture.[]

Taiko

Taiko performing

The taiko (), is a Japanese drum that comes in various sizes and is used to play a variety of musical genres. It has become particularly popular in recent years as the central instrument of percussion ensembles whose repertory is based on a variety of folk and festival music of the past. Such taiko music is played by large drum ensembles called kumi-daiko. Its origins are uncertain, but can be stretched out as far back as the 7th centuries, when a clay figure of a drummer indicates its existence. China influences followed, but the instrument and its music remained uniquely Japanese.[7] Taiko drums during this period were used during battle to intimidate the enemy and to communicate commands. Taiko continue to be used in the religious music of Buddhism and Shint?. In the past players were holy men, who played only at special occasions and in small groups, but in time secular men (rarely women) also played the taiko in semi-religious festivals such as the bon dance.

Modern ensemble taiko is said to have been invented by Daihachi Oguchi in 1951.[8] A jazz drummer, Oguchi incorporated his musical background into large ensembles, which he had also designed. His energetic style made his group popular throughout Japan, and made the Hokuriku region a center for taiko music. Musical groups to arise from this wave of popularity included Oedo Sukeroku Daiko, with Seido Kobayashi. 1969 saw a group called Za Ondekoza founded by Tagayasu Den; Za Ondekoza gathered together young performers who innovated a new roots revival version of taiko, which was used as a way of life in communal lifestyles. During the 1970s, the Japanese government allocated funds to preserve Japanese culture, and many community taiko groups were formed. Later in the century, taiko groups spread across the world, especially to the United States. The video gameTaiko Drum Master is based around taiko. One example of a modern Taiko band is Gocoo.

Min'y? folk music

Japanese folk songs (min'y?) can be grouped and classified in many ways but it is often convenient to think of four main categories: work songs, religious songs (such as sato kagura, a form of Shintoist music), songs used for gatherings such as weddings, funerals, and festivals (matsuri, especially Obon), and children's songs (warabe uta).

In min'y?, singers are typically accompanied by the three-stringed lute known as the shamisen, taiko drums, and a bamboo flute called shakuhachi.[9] Other instruments that could accompany are a transverse flute known as the shinobue, a bell known as kane, a hand drum called the tsuzumi, and/or a 13-stringed zither known as the koto. In Okinawa, the main instrument is the sanshin. These are traditional Japanese instruments, but modern instrumentation, such as electric guitars and synthesizers, is also used in this day and age, when enka singers cover traditional min'y? songs (Enka being a Japanese music genre all its own).[10]

Terms often heard when speaking about min'y? are ondo, bushi, bon uta, and komori uta. An ondo generally describes any folk song with a distinctive swing that may be heard as 2/4 time rhythm (though performers usually do not group beats). The typical folk song heard at Obon festival dances will most likely be an ondo. A bushi is a song with a distinctive melody. Its very name, which is pronounced "bushi" in compounds, means "melody" or "rhythm." The word is rarely used on its own, but is usually prefixed by a term referring to occupation, location, personal name or the like. Bon uta, as the name describes, are songs for Obon, the lantern festival of the dead. Komori uta are children's lullabies. The names of min'yo songs often include descriptive term, usually at the end. For example: Tokyo Ondo, Kushimoto Bushi, Hokkai Bon Uta, and Itsuki no Komoriuta.

Many of these songs include extra stress on certain syllables as well as pitched shouts (kakegoe). Kakegoe are generally shouts of cheer but in min'y?, they are often included as parts of choruses. There are many kakegoe, though they vary from region to region. In Okinawa Min'y?, for example, one will hear the common "ha iya sasa!" In mainland Japan, however, one will be more likely to hear "a yoisho!," "sate!," or "a sore!" Others are "a donto koi!," and "dokoisho!"

Recently a guild-based system known as the iemoto system has been applied to some forms of min'y?; it is called. This system was originally developed for transmitting classical genres such as nagauta, shakuhachi, or koto music, but since it proved profitable to teachers and was supported by students who wished to obtain certificates of proficiency and artist's names continues to spread to genres such as min'y?, Tsugaru-jamisen and other forms of music that were traditionally transmitted more informally. Today some min'y? are passed on in such pseudo-family organizations and long apprenticeships are common.

Okinawan folk music

Okinawan folk music varies from mainland Japanese folk music in several ways.

First, Okinawan folk music is often accompanied by the sanshin whereas in mainland Japan, the shamisen accompanies instead. Other Okinawan instruments include the sanba (which produce a clicking sound similar to that of castanets), taiko and a sharp finger whistling called yubi-bue ().

Second, tonality. A pentatonic scale, which coincides with the major pentatonic scale of Western musical disciplines, is often heard in min'y? from the main islands of Japan, see miny? scale. In this pentatonic scale the subdominant and leading tone (scale degrees 4 and 7 of the Western major scale) are omitted, resulting in a musical scale with no half steps between each note. (Do, Re, Mi, So, La in solfeggio, or scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6) Okinawan min'y?, however, is characterized by scales that include the half-steps omitted in the aforementioned pentatonic scale, when analyzed in the Western discipline of music. In fact, the most common scale used in Okinawan min'y? includes scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Arrival of Western music

Traditional pop music

After the Meiji Restoration introduced Western musical instruction, a bureaucrat named Izawa Shuji compiled songs like "Auld Lang Syne" and commissioned songs using a pentatonic melody.[] Western music, especially military marches, soon became popular in Japan.[] Two major forms of music that developed during this period were shoka, which was composed to bring western music to schools, and gunka, which are military marches with some Japanese elements.[]

As Japan moved towards representative democracy in the late 19th century, leaders hired singers to sell copies of songs that aired their messages, since the leaders themselves were usually prohibited from speaking in public. The street performers were called enka-shi.[] Also at the end of the 19th century, an Osakan form of streetcorner singing became popular; this was called r?kyoku. This included the first two Japanese stars, Yoshida Naramaru and Tochuken Kumoemon.[]

Ichiro Fujiyama, influential ry?k?ka singer

Westernized pop music is called kay?kyoku, which is said to have and first appeared in a dramatization of Resurrection by Tolstoy. The song "Kach?sha no Uta", composed by Shinpei Nakayama, was sung by Sumako Matsui in 1914. The song became a hit among enka-shi, and was one of the first major best-selling records in Japan.[] . Ry?k?ka, which adopted Western classical music, made waves across the country in the prewar period.[]Ichiro Fujiyama became popular in the prewar period, but war songs later became popular when the World War II occurred.[]

Kay?kyoku became a major industry, especially after the arrival of superstar Misora Hibari.[] In the 1950s, tango and other kinds of Latin music, especially Cuban music, became very popular in Japan.[] A distinctively Japanese form of tango called dodompa also developed. Kay?kyoku became associated entirely with traditional Japanese structures, while more Western-style music was called Japanese pop ( or simply 'JPop').[]Enka music, adopting Japanese traditional structures, became quite popular in the postwar period, though its popularity has waned since the 1970s and enjoys little favour with contemporary youth.[] Famous enka singers include Hibari Misora, Saburo Kitajima, Ikuzo Yoshi and Kiyoshi Hikawa.

Art music

Western classical music

Shuji Isawa (1851-1917) studied music at Bridgewater Normal School and Harvard University and was an important figure in the development of Western-influenced Japanese music in the Meiji Era (1868-1912). On returning to Japan in 1879, Isawa formed the Ongaku-Torishirabe-Gakari (Music Investigation Agency), a national research center for Western music; it was later renamed the Tokyo Music School (Tôkyô ongaku gakkô). In 1880, Isawa's American friend and teacher, Luther Whiting Mason, took up a two-year appointment to further develop the music curriculum of Japanese schools. Kosaku Yamada, Yoshinao Nakada, and Toru Takemitsu are Japanese composers who have successively developed what is now known as Japanese Classical Music.[11]

Western classical music now has a strong presence in Japan and the country is one of the most important markets for this music tradition,[12] with Toru Takemitsu (famous as well for his avant-garde works and movie scoring) being the best known.[] Also famous is the conductorSeiji Ozawa. Since 1999 the pianist Fujiko Hemming, who plays Liszt and Chopin, has been famous and her CDs have sold millions of copies.[] Japan is also home to the world's leading wind band.[], the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, and the largest music competition of any kind, the All-Japan Band Association national contest.[] Western classical music does not represent Japan's original culture. The Japanese were first exposed to it in the second half of the 19th century, after more than 200 years of national isolation during the Edo Period.[] But after that, Japanese studied classical music earnestly to make it a part of their own artistic culture.

Jazz

From the 1930s on (except during World War II, when it was repressed as music of the enemy)[] jazz has had a strong presence in Japan.[] The country is an important market for the music, and it is common that recordings unavailable in the United States or Europe are available there. A number of Japanese jazz musicians have achieved popularity abroad as well as at home.[] Musicians such as June (born in Japan) and Dan (third generation American born, of Hiroshima fame), and Sadao Watanabe have a large fan base outside their native country.

Some of the newer bands include Ego-Wrappin' and Sakerock along with more experimental musicians such as Otomo Yoshihide and Keiji Haino.

Popular music

J-pop

J-pop, an abbreviation for Japanese pop, is a loosely defined musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in 1960s pop and rock music, such as The Beatles, which led to bands such as Happy End fusing rock with Japanese music.[13] J-pop was further defined by Japanese new wave bands such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Southern All Stars in the late 1970s.[14] Eventually, J-pop replaced kay?kyoku ("Lyric Singing Music", a term for Japanese pop music from the 1920s to the 1980s) in the Japanese music scene.[15] The term was coined by the Japanese media to distinguish Japanese music from foreign music.

Idol music

Japanese idol musical artists are a significant part of the music market, with girl groups and boy bands regularly topping the singles chart. These include boy band Arashi, that had the best-selling singles of 2008 and 2009, and girl group AKB48, that have had the best-selling singles each year since 2010.

Since the end of the 2010s, more and more idol groups have emerged. The high number of idol groups in the Japanese entertainment industry is sometimes called "Idol sengoku jidai" (; lit. Idol war age).[16]

In 2014, about 486,000 people attended Momoiro Clover Z's live concerts, which was the highest record for female musicians in Japan.[17]

SMAP was a Japanese boy band, recognized. The group was created in 1988.

Japanese heavy metal bands started emerging in the late 1970s, pioneered by bands like Bow Wow, formed in 1975 by guitarist Kyoji Yamamoto, and Loudness, formed in 1981 by guitarist Akira Takasaki. Although there existed other contemporary bands, like Earthshaker, Anthem and 44 Magnum, their debut albums were released only around the mid eighties when metal bands started getting a major exposure. First oversease live performances were by Bow Wow in 1978 in Hong Kong and at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, as well played at the Reading Festival in England in 1982.[26] In 1983, Loudness toured United States and Europe, and started focusing more on an international career. In 1985, the first Japanese metal act was signed to a major label in the United States. Their albums Thunder in the East and Lightning Strikes, released in 1985 and 1986, peaked at number 74 (while number 4 in homeland Oricon chart), and number 64 in the Billboard 200 charts respectively.[27][28] Till the end of the eighties only two other bands, Ezo and Dead End, got their albums released in the United States. In the eighties few bands had a female members, like all-female band Show-Ya fronted by Keiko Terada, and Terra Rosa with Kazue Akao on vocals. In September 1989, Show-Ya's album Outerlimits was released, it reached number 3 in the Oricon album chart.[29] Heavy metal bands reached their peak in the late 1980s and many disbanded until the mid-1990s.

In 1982, some of the first Japanese glam metal bands were formed, like Seikima-II with Kabuki-inspired makeup, and X Japan who pioneered the Japanese movement known as visual kei, and became the best-selling metal band.[30] In 1985, Seikima-II's album Seikima-II - Akuma ga Kitarite Heavy Metal was released and although it reached number 48 on the Oricon album chart, it exceeded 100,000 in sales, the first time for any Japanese metal band. Their albums charted regularly in the top ten until the mid 1990s. In April 1989, X Japan's second album Blue Blood was released and went to number 6, and after 108 weeks on charts sold 712,000 copies.[31] Their third and best-selling album Jelaousy was released in July 1991; it topped the charts and sold 1.11 million copies.[31] There were released more two number one studio albums, Art of Life and Dahlia, a singles compilation X Singles, all selling more than half a million,[32] and since the formation had thirteenth top five singles, disbanding in 1997.[33]

Extreme metal

Japanese extreme metal bands formed in the wake of American and European wave, but didn't get any bigger exposure until the 1990s, and like overseas the genre is usually treated as an underground form of music in Japan.[] First thrash metal bands formed in the early 1980s, like United, whose music also incorporates death metal elements, and Outrage. United's first international performance took place in Los Angeles at the metal festival "Foundations Forum" in September 1995 and had few albums released in North America. Formed in the mid 1980s, Doom played a gig in the United States in October 1988 at CBGB, and was active until 2000 when disbanded.

Doom metal has also gained an audience in Japan. The two best-known Japanese doom metal acts are Church of Misery and Boris, both of whom have gained considerable popularity outside the country.

Hip hop

Hip-hop is a newer form of music on the Japanese music scene. Many felt it was a trend that would immediately pass. However, the genre has lasted for many years and is still thriving. In fact, rappers in Japan did not achieve the success of hip-hop artists in other countries until the late 1980s. This was mainly due to the music world's belief that "Japanese sentences were not capable of forming the rhyming effect that was contained in American rappers' songs."[37] There is a certain, well-defined structure to the music industry called "The Pyramid Structure of a Music Scene". As Ian Condry notes, "viewing a music scene in terms of a pyramid provides a more nuanced understanding of how to interpret the significance of different levels and kinds of success."[38] The levels are as follows (from lowest to highest): fans and potential artists, performing artists, recording artists (indies), major label artists, and mega-hit stars. These different levels can be clearly seen at a genba, or nightclub. Different "families" of rappers perform on stage. A family is essentially a collection of rap groups that are usually headed by one of the more famous Tokyo acts, which also include a number of proteges.[39] They are important because they are "the key to understanding stylistic differences between groups."[39] Hip-hop fans in the audience are the ones in control of the night club. They are the judges who determine the winners in rap battles on stage. An example of this can be seen with the battle between rap artists Dabo (a major label artist) and Kan (an indie artist). Kan challenged Dabo to a battle on stage while Dabo was mid-performance. Another important part of night clubs was displayed at this time. It showed "the openness of the scene and the fluidity of boundaries in clubs."[40]

Electropop and club music

Electronic pop music in Japan became a successful commodity with the "technopop" craze of the late 1970s and 1980s.[], beginning with Yellow Magic Orchestra and solo albums of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono in 1978 before hitting popularity in 1979 and 1980. Influenced by disco, impressionistic and 20th century classical composition, jazz/fusion pop, new wave and technopop artists such as Kraftwerk and Telex, these artists were commercial yet uncompromising.[] Ryuichi Sakamoto claims that "to me, making pop music is not a compromise because I enjoy doing it". The artists that fall under the banner of technopop in Japan are as loose as those that do so in the West, thus new wave bands such as P-Model and The Plastics fall under the category alongside the symphonic techno arrangements of Yellow Magic Orchestra. The popularity of this music meant that many popular artists of the 1970s that previously were known for acoustic music turned to techno production, such as Taeko Onuki and Akiko Yano, and idol producers began employing electronic arrangements for new singers in the 1980s.[] In the 1990s, Denki Groove and Capsule formed and have been mainstays of the Japanese electronica scene. Today, newer artists such as Polysics pay explicit homage to this era of Japanese popular (and in some cases underground or difficult to obtain) music.[]Capsule's Yasutaka Nakata has also been involved behind the scenes of popular electropop acts Perfume and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, both of which have had success domestically and internationally; Kyary in particular has been dubbed the "Kawaii Harajuku Ambassador" for her visibility internationally.

Game music

When the first electronic games were sold, they only had rudimentary sound chips with which to produce music. As the technology advanced, the quality of sound and music these game machines could produce increased dramatically. The first game to take credit for its music was Xevious, also noteworthy for its deeply (at that time) constructed stories. Though many games have had beautiful music to accompany their gameplay, one of the most important games in the history of the video game music is Dragon Quest. Koichi Sugiyama, a composer who was known for his music for various anime and TV shows, including Cyborg 009 and a feature film of Godzilla vs. Biollante, got involved in the project out of pure curiosity and proved that games can have serious soundtracks. Until his involvement, music and sounds were often neglected in the development of video games and programmers with little musical knowledge were forced to write the soundtracks as well. Undaunted by technological limits, Sugiyama worked with only 8 part polyphony to create a soundtrack that would not tire the player despite hours and hours of gameplay.

Another well-known author of video game music is Nobuo Uematsu. Uematsu's earlier compositions for the game series, Final Fantasy, on Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System in America), are being arranged for full orchestral score. In 2003, he took his rock-based tunes from their original MIDI format and created The Black Mages.

The techno/trance music production group I've Sound has made a name for themselves first by making themes for eroge computer games, and then by breaking into the anime scene by composing themes for them. Unlike others, this group was able to find fans in other parts of the world through their eroge and anime themes.

Today, game soundtracks are sold on CD, as well on digitally on websites such as iTunes. Famous singers like Hikaru Utada, Nana Mizuki and BoA sometimes sing songs for games as well, and this is also seen as a way for singers to make a names for themselves.

Music in Japan is one of several case-study volumes that can be used along with Thinking Musically, the core book in the Global Music Series. Thinking Musically incorporates music from many diverse cultures and establishes the framework for exploring the practice of music around the world. It sets the stage for an array of case-study volumes, each of which focuses on a single area of the world. Each case study uses the contemporary musical situation as a point of departure, covering historical information and traditions as they relate to the present. Visit www.oup.com/us/globalmusic for a list of case studies in the Global Music Series. The website also includes instructional materials to accompany each study. Music in Japan offers a vivid introduction to the music of contemporary Japan, a nation in which traditional, Western, and popular music thrive side by side. Drawing on more than forty years of experience, author Bonnie C. Wade focuses on three themes throughout the book and in the musical selections on the accompanying CD. She begins by exploring how music in Japan has been profoundly affected by interface with both the Western (Europe and the Americas) and Asian (continental and island) cultural spheres. Wade then shows how Japan's thriving popular music industry is also a modern form of a historically important facet of Japanese musical culture: the process of gradual popularization, in which a local or a group's music eventually becomes accessible to a broader range of people. She goes on to consider the intertextuality of Japanese music: how familiar themes, musical sounds, and structures have been maintained and transformed across the various traditions of Japanese performing arts over time. Music in Japan is enhanced by eyewitness accounts of performances, interviews with key performers, and vivid illustrations. Packaged with an 80-minute CD containing examples of the music discussed in the book, it features guided listening and hands-on activities that encourage readers to engage actively and critically with the music.

Grounded in the fields of Ethnomusicology, Anthropology, Popular Music Studies, and Japanese Studies, this book explores the underground Tokyo hardcore scene, ultimately asking what play as resistance through performance of the scene tells us about Japanese society in general. Matsue highlights the complicated positioning of young adult Japanese in contemporary Japan as they negotiate both increasing social demands and increasing problems in society at large. Further drawing on theories of play, identity building, and the construction of gender, all informed by the increasingly influential field of Performance Studies, the book offers a highly interdisciplinary look at the importance of musical scenes for expressing resistance at the turn of the 21st century. Within the underground Tokyo hardcore scene this resistance is expressed through play with individual and collective identity, in intimate and potentially illicit spaces, with an arguably challenging sound and performance style.

Made in Japan serves as a comprehensive and rigorous introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology ofÂ contemporaryÂ Japanese popular music. Each essay, written by a leading scholar of Japanese music, covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of pop music in Japan and provides adequate context so readers understand why the figure or genre under discussion is of lasting significance. The book first presents a general description of the history and background of popular music, followed by essays organized into thematic sections: Putting Japanese Popular Music in Perspective; Rockinâ Japan; and Japanese Popular Music and Visual Arts.